E-invoicing to the Dutch Rijksoverheid: from the Mac with SI-UBL 2.0 (NLCIUS)

What it's about

Since 1 January 2017, the Dutch central government (Rijksoverheid) has required an electronic invoice for every new procurement contract. Paper or a PDF by email is no longer accepted in the B2G space — only a structured e-invoice counts.

You submit structured XML in the SI-UBL 2.0 format, the Dutch flavour of the European standard EN 16931 (NLCIUS). The format is fully aligned with Peppol BIS Billing 3.0. GrandTotal generates the XML at the press of a button. For an overview of the mandate across all EU countries, see the overview of the e-invoicing mandate in Europe.

Who is affected?

• Suppliers to the Rijksoverheid: anyone delivering to ministries and central-government services under a new contract must invoice electronically.
• Decentralised bodies: municipalities, provinces and water authorities have been required to receive e-invoices since 18 April 2019. Whether they also mandate sending is up to each body — often via Peppol as well.
• No minimum amount: even a 50-euro invoice to the central government needs the e-invoice format.

Three submission routes

The XML from GrandTotal reaches the authority in one of three ways. Which one fits depends on how often you invoice and how integrated your bookkeeping already is.

1. Leveranciersportaal: the free web portal from Logius for manual entry, intended for anyone sending up to roughly ten invoices a month. No XML export needed, but time-consuming.
2. Peppol: delivery through a Peppol Access Point. This is the authorities' preferred route; the Netherlands has its own Peppol authority (NPa). GrandTotal exports the format and a service provider handles delivery — which also works for other EU authorities.
3. Digipoort: the government's official gateway (operated by Logius), the "electronic post office". Built for high volumes; it requires a one-time connection and a PKIoverheid certificate.

Mandatory fields on the e-invoice

Without a few mandatory fields the e-invoice is rejected. GrandTotal fills them automatically from your master data, provided it's kept clean there:

• OIN (Overheidsidentificatienummer) of the recipient organisation — the digital address of the e-invoice (Peppol scheme 0190). Without a correct OIN the invoice won't arrive; the authority's KvK number is not enough.
• Inkoopordernummer (purchase order number) — equivalent to the Buyer Reference (OrderReference). Many bodies reject invoices without an order or commitment number.
• KvK number and VAT ID of the supplier.
• IBAN for the bank transfer.
• Structured VAT details by tax rate (21%, 9% or exemption).

Setup in GrandTotal

To generate e-invoices you need the XL edition or an e-invoice-capable plan. After that:

1. Under Settings / E-Invoice, choose the SI-UBL 2.0 (NLCIUS) format.
2. For each government client, store the recipient's identifier: the OIN (Peppol scheme 0190); business customers use their KvK number (scheme 0106). GrandTotal records this as scheme:number, e.g. 0190:123456789.
3. Enter the authority's order number (inkoopordernummer) in the invoice's Reference field — it ends up as the Buyer Reference in the XML.
4. When creating the invoice, choose Export as e-invoice — the XML is generated alongside the PDF.